ntfswipe8

Usage

Overview

ntfswipe clears all or part of unused space on an NTFS volume by overwriting with zeroes or random bytes.

Options

Below is a summary of all the options that ntfswipe accepts. Nearly all options have two equivalent names. The short name is preceded by - and the long name is preceded by --. Any single letter options, that don't take an argument, can be combined into a single command, e.g. -fv is equivalent to -f -v. Long named options can be abbreviated to any unique prefix of their name.

-a, --all

Wipe all unused space. This may take significant time. If the option --unused-fast (or -U) is also present, the faster wiping method is used.

-b, --bytes BYTE-LIST

Define the allowed replacement bytes which are drawn randomly to overwrite the unused space. BYTE-LIST is a comma-separated list of values in range 0-255 expressed in octal, decimal or hexadecimal base.

-c, --count NUM

Define the number of times the unused space is to be overwritten. If both options --bytes and --count are set, the space is repeatedly overwritten this number of times by each of the values in the list.

-d, --directory

Wipe all the directory indexes, which may contain names of deleted files.

-f, --force

This will override some sensible defaults, such as not using a mounted volume. Use this option with caution.

-h, --help

Show a list of options with a brief description of each one.

-i, --info

Display details about unused space, without wiping anything.

-l, --logfile

Overwrite the logfile (update journal).

-m, --mft

Overwrite the unused space in the MFT (main file table, which contains the file names, and the contents of short files).

-n, --no-action

Executes the wiping process without writing to device.

-p, --pagefile

Overwrite the Windows swap space.

-q, --quiet

Suppress some debug/warning/error messages.

-s, --undel

Overwrite the space which had been allocated to a file which has been deleted recently and is still undeletable. This option is not compatible with --bytes and the replacement bytes are random ones or taken from a standard list.

-t, --tails

Overwrite the space at the end of files which is unused, but allocated because the allocations are always done by full clusters.

-u, --unused

Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file (but may have been used in the past).

-U, --unused-fast

Overwrite the space which is currently not allocated to any file, trying not to overwrite the space not written to since the previous wiping.

-v, --verbose

Display more debug/warning/error messages. This option may be used twice to display even more messages.

-V, --version

Show the version number, copyright and license of ntfswipe.

Examples

Wipe out all unused space in an NTFS volume.

Wipe out all deleted file names from an NTFS volume.